Metro tests direct routes

Experiment links Blue Ash to Uptown

Apr. 6, 2013

Living in an Over-the-Rhine halfway house in 2002, Robert Rawlings, 48, took a Metro bus to work at KDM in Evendale each day. He's been with the company 11 years now, and says he wouldn't have been able to work there if the company didn't have a bus stop. / The Enquirer/Jason Williams

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This summer, riders will be able to hop a Metro bus in Blue Ash and arrive at thousands of jobs, the region’s top hospitals and the University of Cincinnati in just 45 minutes.

Currently, the 17-mile ride to Uptown takes nearly twice that, including 150 potential stops and the need to transfer between buses Downtown. Transit officials expect 5,000 people will use the new route each day, testing a better way of getting students and workers from Point A to B.

Metro’s test could lead to fundamental change in the city’s public bus system, part of the region’s transportation system that’s getting a renewed look.

Rather than relying on a hub-and-spoke system that funnels buses through Downtown, Metro is testing getting people directly to places without time-consuming transfers and having to back-track on trips.

Public transit supporters say the move is a step in the right direction, essential for bringing workers to jobs and students to schools.

It also will inform Metro’s long-term transit plan, the first in 30 years, due out in August.

“We’re taking baby steps,” Cincinnati Vice Mayor Roxanne Qualls said. “It’s a critical issue that requires additional support from the region, not just the city of Cincinnati.”

Qualls and Metro, with the Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber of Commerce, Northern Kentucky’s TANK bus system and others are leading efforts to completely overhaul the system. The goal is to create an efficient and fast-moving regional bus network that addresses across-the-board economic development needs.

Nobody expects miracles overnight. For now, limited funding, political obstacles and around-the-clock work shifts at some companies make it challenging for public transit to be everything to everyone.

A bigger issue is how to connect people in the urban core to entry-level service, logistics and manufacturing jobs in outlying suburbs.

“Transportation is by far the largest barrier that people in poverty face to getting a job,” said Peggy Zink, president of Cincinnati Works, a workforce development agency.

“If the system does change, great, but it’s not going to change next week. This is just the reality we work with.”

Politics, finances hinder public transit

Building the ideal bus system is full of financial and political complications.

Bus systems originally were set up to bring commuters into a region’s central jobs center. But as the suburbs have grown, they have opened more space for companies to develop back-office call centers and manufacturing and logistics facilities away from the city core.

That has created the issue of “reverse commute” – a disconnect for people living in the urban core to access entry-level jobs in the suburbs. Cincinnati and similar-sized markets that rely heavily on vehicles and have a bus system as the only mode of public transportation have long wrestled with the issue.

To fix it, the entire bus network would need to be overhauled, said Joshua Schank, president and CEO of the Eno Center for Transportation, a Washington-based think tank.

“Rationalizing changes to a transportation network can be difficult,” Schank said. “You need incentives in place for elected officials to take those kinds of risks. What do they get out of it? Counties and cities have different agendas.”

Such is the case here. Metro is governed by the Southwest Ohio Regional Transit Authority (SORTA). In 2008, the board added representatives from Butler, Warren and Clermont counties, in addition to the city of Cincinnati and Hamilton County. It was an effort by some to build more regionalism in public transit. But the political entities often disagree.

Warren County is home to several companies with entry-level jobs, yet has been lukewarm to embracing a regional public transportation network for which it sees little value.

SORTA, meanwhile, sued the city of Cincinnati last spring for trying to use $1.7 million in transit money on streetlights. And in December, the city wanted to change an agreement with SORTA and use transit funds to help pay for the $110.4 million streetcar project.

“Frankly, the (SORTA) board isn’t doing enough,” said Hamilton County Commissioner Todd Portune, board chair of the Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Regional Council of Governments, a transportation planning agency.

“They’ve dropped the ball on coming up with answers to repositioning the needs of service. But in all fairness, they’ve suffered some distractions.”

Making efforts to improve system

Metro’s short-term plan calls for reorganizing routes within the city, which funds half of the bus system’s $92 million budget. Some 99 percent of Metro rides are in the city.

Service changes go into effect in August and, in part, will help connect commuters from the city’s new westside transit hub and the Montgomery Road corridor to Uptown without having to travel into Downtown to catch a connecting bus.

The Montgomery Road demonstration is scheduled to launch Aug. 19. The service, called Metro*Plus, will be somewhat of an example of “bus rapid transit” – a limited-stop system that mimics light rail. BRT needs bus-only lanes, and no new lanes will be built.

Montgomery Road is one of seven regional corridors identified as potential BRT routes. Officials are looking at a two-year trial phase on the route.

“If we’re successful, we would see (federal) money in 2016,” Qualls said.

Metro doesn’t have a cost estimate. But it would cost hundreds of millions to implement BRT across the region. A 6.8-mile BRT line that opened in Cleveland in 2008 cost $200 million.

Additionally, Metro is eliminating some of the hub-and-spoke trips by opening smaller transit hubs. The $623,000 Glenway Crossing Transit Center opened in December 2011. Work on a $6.5 million hub in Uptown is scheduled to start soon.

Still, agencies working to connect people in poverty to jobs say incremental changes don’t do much to help their mission.

“If we had a more robust transportation system, we could decrease the unemployment rate of people living in the inner cities,” said Stephen Tucker, Urban League vice president of workforce programs. “There are tons of jobs out there. I don’t think the problem is being discussed as much as it should be.”

Public transportation is critical to some companies’ recruiting efforts.

KDM, a digital sign printing company in Evendale, has long been committed to hiring ex-felons and people living in poverty. Public transportation has been crucial for the company, which has 225 workers in Evendale.

Jon Heimsness needed Metro when he started at KDM in 2002.

Then, KDM had a bus stop right in front of its facility. Heimsness caught the bus from Downtown each day for his first five months on the job until he had enough money to buy a $700 used Chevrolet Lumina.

Heimsness, 65, said he’s missed one day of work in 11 years. He recently bought a new Nissan Sentra.

“It all started with the bus,” he said. “It was my godsend. I wouldn’t be employed here without it.”

Metro eliminated the service years ago. The nearest bus stop now is 1.7 miles away.

“One of the first questions applicants ask me, ‘Is there bus transportation?’ When we say no, they withdraw,” said Don Savino, KDM’s human resources director. “It really cuts us off from having a larger geographic region to draw from.”

The Urban League’s Teri Dixon says the lack of bus transportation limits options for students graduating from her customer-service training program. Most call centers are in the suburbs, including a Macy’s customer-service center in Mason. It’s one of the largest in the region with 2,500 employees. But the nearest bus stop is 1.6 miles away.

Garcia Crews said it is up to a company to take the lead and contact Metro about adding service for its workforce.

“It’s imperative that we’re at the table with those decision-makers,” she said. “We have to have honest and open dialogue about economic development.” ⬛